Why I Unfriended FaceBook

This was excerpted from a conversation I had with someone who wondered why I dropped my Facebook account a few months ago, besides agreeing with Betty White's assessment, that it is simply "a colossal waste of time!"


Facebook. I like it less and less every day.

For one thing, it smacks more and more of a trend in our society towards Big Brotherliness which I find alarming. The more we publish of our lives, our personal stuff, the more vulnerable we are to anyone--government or rogue hacker, commercial or criminal predator...  All we do electronically leaves a trail that diminishes privacy and security. It was not worth worrying over Facebook's role in that while not actually making much use of it, as, in fact, I wasn't.

If you are on FB, everyone assumes you are on it all the time. As I wasn't, I missed things only offered there.

It is a great shortcut to get information out there--but like mass mailings, there's no way to be sure that the information gets received. Senders seem to forget that: If you want to be sure that someone knows what you want them to know, you have to actually tell them! Facebook becomes a substitute for actually communicating with people: electronic connectivity becomes a force for human disconnection.

We are making life so technically convenient, that we are losing  much actual human connection. Sure, we go faster, to more places, and get more things done in a day.  We are entertained and stimulated every moment we are not actually asleep. We can be in almost continual, trivial contact with friends, relatives, and total strangers we 'like' and call 'friend.' We don't have to even stand up to go shopping.

Who appreciates silence any more, or true down-time? Hell, we don't have time for down-time! We never have to be alone with ourselves: We never have to talk to just ourselves.  And when connectivity fails, those who live their lives by it have not developed the resources to be alone with themselves.

I don't think such social, technological paradigm shifts as 'social media' are a bad thing, I am just looking at what we are giving up for this one, at how we are giving those things up without even noticing: it isn't actually a conscious choice, but an induglence in things like... unthinking reaction, impulse and gratification all with a flick and a click: Behaviors and mindsets of childhood.

This is not only dumbing-down but also younging-down American society.  
If we are going to fulfill the responsibility of elders to the young, then we have to show them what consciousness looks like, and teach critical thinking, nurture insightfulness.  We need to demonstrate appreciation for Time, and its part in shaping our experience of the world, of life. We need to encourage our children--and our own inner-children--to find interest in real things, not just the superficial glamour sprayed out by the entertainment industry.

We need to keep the fun and the useful and the needful in proportion and balance.

Imagine a diabetes of the spirit, of society, where the system no longer knows how to process all the sweets dumped into it, and yet craves ever more, because real hunger is never satisfied.

Imagine a community of millions herded into handy locations, for the convenience of those who feed off the unaware, the ignorant, the innocent.

Now, imagine being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.



That is why I unfriended Facebook.